BG Reads | News You Need to Know (April 9, 2020)
[BG PODCAST]
SPECIAL EPISODE - ATX COVID-19 COMMUNITY UPDATES (4.8.2020): Public Health & Safety (LINK TO SHOW)
BG PODCAST EPISODE 82: Metro Discussion with Mayor Larry Wallace, City of Manor (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin Officials Plan For Backup Facilities If Hospitals Become Overwhelmed With COVID-19 Cases (KUT)
City officials say they are preparing to increase the number of hospital beds in the area in case there is a surge of COVID-19 patients overwhelming existing hospitals.
Dr. Mark Escott, Austin’s interim medical director and health authority, said the city has created a “surge plan” that would include creating additional facilities to treat patients.
It's important that everyone who requires medical attention during the pandemic gets the care they need, he said.
“While most of these cases are mild, it is critical that you not wait until when it gets worse,” he said. “It is critical that you seek out medical care.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
See also: City of Austin COVID-19 Surge Plan (CITY OF AUSTIN)
Austin mayor considering shutting down parks and trails to further social distancing measures (Community Impact)
Austin Mayor Steve Adler said April 8 that he has growing concerns about residents gathering at the city’s parks and trails amid strict social distancing measures and said he is considering shutting them down to the public.
The city government already announced Austin’s parks and trails will be closed April 9-12 to mitigate potential gatherings over the holiday weekend, typically a busy time for the city’s outdoor amenities.At the April 8 press conference, Adler discussed new modeling from The University of Texas that showed positive results from social distancing measures. However, the mayor said he was still concerned about how many people were using the city’s parks and trails and said he is considering shutting down the trails beyond the holiday weekend… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin restaurants selling grocery items (KVUE)
In March, Gov. Greg Abbott allowed Texas restaurants to begin selling in bulk. Now, several Austin restaurants are selling things like meats, eggs and paper towels to try to boost local business income and provide Austinites with supplies they may not be able to find at the grocery store.
Here's a list of local restaurants now selling grocery items… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
In a first, Texas Supreme Court goes live on YouTube (Austin American-Statesman)
The Texas Supreme Court made history Wednesday when its nine justices, sitting in their homes across the state or in their offices in Austin, connected remotely to hear oral arguments in cases that were streamed live on YouTube. The justices, wearing robes and seated before a virtual background — a photo of their Austin courtroom — adopted the unprecedented format to follow social distancing requirements and meet via Zoom, a videoconferencing program that streams multiple images onto a single screen using computer web cameras and microphones. The two Houston lawyers who joined the day’s first argument — one standing before a closed door, the other seated before a bookcase — quickly adapted to the unique circumstances.
And aside from momentary audio hiccups and minor glitches, including a lawyer who briefly lost his connection twice during the day’s final argument, the experiment was a success as the court heard three cases that had been previously postponed by the coronavirus pandemic. “I thought the interchanges, the questions and responses, went really well,” Chief Justice Nathan Hecth told the American-Statesman afterward. “One thing we worried about was that it would be too stilted to get the same response that you’d get in courtroom,” Hecht said. “We didn’t want this to be oral argument light. We wanted it to be the real thing.” For each case, the Zoom feed was limited to the justices, the two arguing lawyers and a camera inside clerk Blake Hawthorne’s office that allowed him to call the court into session and display a digital timer so the lawyers would know when their time was up. For the public, the event was streamed live on the court’s YouTube channel, which until Wednesday featured a dusty collection of old speeches and court events… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Nearly 300 municipal employees furloughed in San Antonio amid coronavirus fallout (San Antonio Express-News)
The city of San Antonio furloughed 270 municipal employees Wednesday as the city’s finances tighten amid the coronavirus crisis and its ensuing economic fallout. The employees work in several departments funded by tax revenue through hotel room bookings, which have plummeted as the city’s travel and tourism industry dried up in recent weeks. The city has already made $82 million in budget cuts.
In the face of falling hotel occupancy tax revenue and “significant economic uncertainty,” City Manager Erik Walsh told Mayor Ron Nirenberg, City Council members and city executives he “made the difficult decision” to furlough workers in five city departments. “We value these employees and they remain a part of our team during these very challenging times,” Walsh wrote. Those departments are convention and sports facilities, arts and culture, finance, the Office of Risk Management and the Office of International Relations… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Impacts of coronavirus on Texans of color clouded by incomplete data (Texas Tribune)
While early reports from other parts of the country indicate black Americans are disproportionately likely to get sick or die from the new coronavirus, it’s virtually impossible to determine if that grim reality is playing out in Texas because information released by state health officials is notably incomplete.
As part of epidemiological investigations, the Department of State Health Services and local officials are collecting some race and ethnicity data for people who have died from or tested positive for the virus. As of Monday night, though, the state had compiled the information for less than one quarter of the 7,276 confirmed cases reported at that point. And although state leaders acknowledge the demographic data is lacking, they have indicated the state won't be taking steps to mandate reporting to fill in the gaps.
The limited available data provided to The Texas Tribune offers a murky glimpse of the virus' impact on Texas communities of color. Race and ethnicity are reported as unknown for a significant portion of the completed case reports. (Agency officials said some people prefer not to provide the information.)… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Government and businesses turn attention to eventual reopening of $22 trillion US economy (Wall Street Journal)
Government officials and business leaders are turning their attention to a looming challenge in the fight against the new coronavirus pandemic: Reopening a $22 trillion U.S. economy that has been shut down like never before. With some preliminary signs that infections from the virus are slowing, the whole nation is hopeful to get back to business as soon as possible. But a host of questions arise: Under what conditions should people be allowed back to work and stay-at-home orders be lifted? How will people at work be monitored for reinfection or antibodies to prevent a resurgence of the deadly virus? Does it all happen at once or is it staggered? Who is in charge of the effort?
A sharp reduction in new infections is a critical first step, but health experts say other steps will be needed to prevent another devastating outbreak that shuts the economy down all over again. That includes building testing and surveillance systems—and a readiness to reintroduce some social distancing and other mitigations on smaller scale if necessary—to give businesses and individuals confidence that they can return to work without risking infection. “It isn’t like a light switch on and off,” said Anthony Fauci, a member of President Trump’s task force on the pandemic, in an interview with “The Journal,” a Wall Street Journal podcast. “It’s a gradual pulling back on certain of the restrictions to try and get society a bit back to normal.” Dr. Fauci said a first condition is a steep drop in the number of cases. “You’ve got to make sure you are absolutely going in the right direction.” Then, he said, “you gradually come back. You don’t jump into it with both feet.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a word (LA Times)
Although President Trump has directed states and hospitals to secure what supplies they can, the federal government is quietly seizing orders, leaving medical providers across the country in the dark about where the material is going and how they can get what they need to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. Hospital and clinic officials in seven states described the seizures in interviews over the past week. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is not publicly reporting the acquisitions, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, nor has the administration detailed how it decides which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.
Officials who’ve had materials seized also say they’ve received no guidance from the government about how or if they will get access to the supplies they ordered. That has stoked concerns about how public funds are being spent and whether the Trump administration is fairly distributing scarce medical supplies. “In order to have confidence in the distribution system, to know that it is being done in an equitable manner, you have to have transparency,” said Dr. John Hick, an emergency physician at Hennepin Healthcare in Minnesota who has helped develop national emergency preparedness standards through the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The medical leaders on the front lines of the fight to control the coronavirus and keep patients alive say they are grasping for explanations. “We can’t get any answers,” said a California hospital official who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the White House… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
The Bingham Group, LLC is an Austin-based full service lobbying firm representing and advising clients on municipal, legislative, and regulatory matters throughout Texas.
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